Numerous underground mines are developed and are in operation throughout the world. Though safety measures are typically deployed to prevent accidents involving collisions between vehicles, machines, personnel and/or obstacles in these mines, accidents unfortunately happen on a regular basis.
To minimize the risks of collisions, collision avoidance systems are increasingly deployed. These systems come in various configurations and use various technologies, all with their inherent advantages and drawbacks.
One type of collision avoidance systems that is becoming popular in underground mine environments involves the use of typically three types of collision avoidance devices configured to be respectively mounted to vehicles, personnel, and obstacles. These devices are configured to form ad hoc peer-to-peer wireless networks when they are within communication range of each other and can therefore transmit proximity warnings to each other if proximity is detected from various sensors based on received signal strength, time-of-flight, radar, lasers or magnetic fields.
However, even if these types of collision avoidance systems can provide valuable warnings to enhance safety at mine sites, it remains that these systems do not take into account the context in which the person or the vehicle carrying the device is before transmitting proximity warnings. Hence, these systems often cause the transmission of proximity warnings even though the context does not warrant it.
Non-limitative examples of non-hazardous proximity warnings include the notification to a vehicle operator of personnel in the area when personnel are passengers in the same or another vehicle, the notification to a vehicle operator of personnel in the area when personnel are in a refuge or other sheltered area, the notification to a vehicle operator of vehicles in the area when the vehicles are parked in a garage, and the notification to personnel of a vehicle in the area when the vehicle is stopped or non-operating.
Unfortunately, current collision avoidance systems have a very limited ability to distinguish between non-hazardous situations, hazardous situations, and very hazardous or critical situations, and therefore often issue proximity warnings in all these situations.
Understandably, the transmission of proximity warnings for non-hazardous situations causes problems. For example, vehicle operators bombarded by undistinguished proximity warnings will be unable to distinguish between very hazardous, hazardous and non-hazardous situations and will tend to ignore most warnings, thereby causing preventable accidents.
Hence, in view of the foregoing, there is a need for an improved collision avoidance system, and related devices and methods, purpose-built for underground mines which will at least mitigate some of the shortcomings of systems using collision avoidance devices.